Afghanistan's Humanitarian Crisis: Is Enough Aid Reaching Afghanistan? Hearings
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S. HRG. 107–235 AFGHANISTAN’S HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: IS ENOUGH AID REACHING AFGHANISTAN? HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND TERRORISM OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 10, 2001 AND NOVEMBER 15, 2001 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 75–946 PDF WASHINGTON : 2002 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:27 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 75946 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware, Chairman PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JESSE HELMS, North Carolina CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota BILL FRIST, Tennessee BARBARA BOXER, California LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia BILL NELSON, Florida SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming EDWIN K. HALL, Staff Director PATRICIA A. MCNERNEY, Republican Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota, Chairman ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas BARBARA BOXER, California GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland BILL FRIST, Tennessee JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND TERRORISM BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming BILL NELSON, Florida BILL FRIST, Tennessee JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., DELAWARE JESSE HELMS, North Carolina CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas (II) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:27 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 75946 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2 CONTENTS Page AFGHANISTAN’S HUMANITARIAN CRISIS—OCTOBER 10, 2001 Bacon, Ken, president, Refugees International, Washington, D.C. ..................... 42 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 De Torrente, Nicolas, executive director, Doctors Without Borders, New York, New York .............................................................................................................. 35 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 Kreczko, Alan, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, Department of State, Washington, D.C. .................................. 21 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 22 Natsios, Andrew S., Administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ......................................................................................... 9 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 12 Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record ..................... 15 Rocca, Christina, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Department of State, Washington, D.C. .................................................................................. 17 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 Smeal, Eleanor, president, Feminist Majority, Arlington, Virginia .................... 46 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: IS ENOUGH AID REACHING AFGHANISTAN?—NOVEMBER 15, 2001 Bartolini, Mark, vice president of Government Relations, International Rescue Committee, Washington, DC ............................................................................... 85 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 87 Charny, Joel, vice president, Refugees International, Washington, DC ............. 80 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 82 Devendorf, George, director of Emergency Operations, Mercy Corps, Wash- ington, DC ............................................................................................................. 77 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 78 Kreczko, Alan, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State, Washington, DC .................................... 68 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69 McConnell, Bernd, Director of Central Asian Task Force, U.S. Agency for International Development ................................................................................. 64 Natsios, Hon. Andrew S., Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Devel- opment, prepared statement ............................................................................... 64 Oxfam International submission of 3 articles for the record: ‘‘Rebuilding Afghanistan: An Agenda for International Action’’ ................... 97 ‘‘Food Has Now Run Out for Many Afghan People’’ ...................................... 99 ‘‘Between A Rock and A Hard Place’’ .............................................................. 101 Rogers, Leonard, Acting Assistant Administrator for Humanitarian Response, U.S. Agency for International Development ...................................................... 72 (III) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:27 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 75946 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:27 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 75946 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2 AFGHANISTAN’S HUMANITARIAN CRISIS Wednesday, October 10, 2001 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS, AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND TERRORISM, Washington, D.C. The subcommittees met at 2:30 p.m., in room SD–419, the Dirk- sen Senate Office Building, Hon. Paul Wellstone (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Wellstone, Biden, Dodd, Boxer, and Nelson. Senator WELLSTONE [presiding]. This hearing, which will be a joint Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, Near Eastern and South Asian, and International Operations Committees will come to order. Let me thank all for being here. We will have brief opening statements, and then we will go to Mr. Natsios who is the adminis- trator of the United States Agency for International Development, and then Christina Rocca, who is Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and then Alan Kreczko, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Population. We will go in that order by protocol. The second panel will be Mr. Nicolas de Torrente, Executive Di- rector of Doctors Without Borders; Ken Bacon, president of Refu- gees International, and also Ms. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. Let me at the outset—and I think each of us will try to keep our statements brief. I want to thank Senator Boxer for agreeing to co- chair this hearing with me, and I want to thank all of the partici- pants who have taken time away from pressing work to be here to testify today. The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington require our country to respond assertively and effectively against inter- national terrorism. As the administration takes military action in- side Afghanistan, I believe we must also take urgent steps now to address the humanitarian crisis there. Even before the world focused on it as a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, Afghanistan was on the brink of a hu- manitarian catastrophe, the site of the greatest crisis in hunger and refugee displacement in the world. Now the worsening situa- tion on the ground is almost unimaginable. After four years of re- lentless drought, the worst in three decades, and the total failure of the Taliban government in administering the country, 4 million people have abandoned their homes in search of food in Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan and elsewhere, while those left behind eat meals (1) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:27 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 75946 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2 2 of locusts and animal fodder; 7.5 million people inside the country are threatened by famine or severe hunger as cold weather ap- proaches, according to the United Nations. As President Bush made clear, we are waging a campaign against terrorists, not ordinary Afghans, who are some of the poor- est and most beleaguered people on the planet and were our allies during the Cold War, when it suited our interests. We abandoned Afghanistan then—we can never afford to do so again. I have said before that I believe any military action must be targeted against those responsible for the terror attacks and those harboring them, planned to minimize the danger to innocent civilians on the edge of starvation, and prepared to address any humanitarian con- sequences